To question Nº1
As I have said in some of my previous posts this DVD has worked perfectly in this computer during 9 months and it still works in a friend’s notebook.

Sometimes settings change of their own accord and for no known reason.

So just because you in the past set it to first try to boot from the DVD does not mean it still is set that way. Your spreadsheet shows the computer is not succeeding in booting from the DVD. If it were, it should not have ended up in Windoze.

So recheck the bios settings, to ensure it tries to boot from the DVD before the HDD. If you are not sure how to do this, ask here.

Quote:

To question Nº2
Yes

It appears the correct answer now may be No.

Booting with your CD in the drive, the behavior you are describing now (smoothly booting into Windoze) is quite different from what you reported at the start of this tread (getting partway into Puppy and then halting). So it is getting worse.

Have you got any other bootable CD or DVD (Puppy or Ubuntu) that you can try, just to prove (to us) that it will boot from a bootable DVD when one is present?

I have to agree with shep here...from your report, it does not seem to be trying to boot from the DVD at all. This could be a problem with the DVD being read and/or the BIOS booting that media. Please verify your BIOS settings as a sanity check for you and us. As shep said, settings can change, especially when you updated to a new BIOS version.

If it is successfully booting, I believe the DVD light would continue to be on/flash during boot up and it would need to be spinning most of the time until the OS is loaded to RAM. So if this is not happening, I'm pretty sure you will always end up with the Windows logo.

I'm assuming you never got a chance to try the "puppy pfix=ram" boot command since it would seem that the DVD is not running at all now. I still feel that your original Kernel Panic problem was do to a corrupt puppy save file and not actually the hardware or DVD, even though it now seems to be hardware or BIOS related.

To clarify noryb's question No.3, there should be a key you can press at the BIOS screen, that takes you to a boot menu. There is usually one key that goes to the BIOS setup, and the other that goes to the boot menu. He was asking if you have pressed that key, and tried selecting DVD directly. If it doesn't boot when selected directly, or if it doesn't show up at all, it would narrow down the possible causes of the issue.

Additionally, have you or can you try a fresh DVD (with a DVD type that you have verified works with your DVD player...test with a CD or movie or something) and/or a bootable USB drive?

Booting with your CD in the drive, the behaviour you are describing now (smoothly booting into Windoze) is quite different from what you reported at the start of this tread (getting partway into Puppy and then halting).

Yes Shep, you are right, that’s what I’ve been trying to say ever since on Sun 07 Mar 2010 17:08 when I posted:

Quote:

Post Subject: Picking up the thread
Subject description: I return to the problem, describe changes and ask for feedback
Gentlemen:
After 37 days since my last post, some things have changed:
a) Though Puppy's Live DVD has been most of the time loaded on the optical disk drive tray and this device has always been set as the first boot priority at the BIOS System Setup, it’s a long time since I’m not receiving screen messages related to Puppy and the system always starts up with Windows XP.
b) Regarding Flash’s question I have contacted and received additional information from Nero AG (the developers of the software that was used to burn the DVD I've been talking about).
Their last message says:
"I have analyzed the log that you have sent us; I can now tell you that the disk is not a multisession disc.
An image file was recorded to a DVD. This DVD has been completed; therefore you cannot add more information to it.
...
With this specific document you have sent us, we can tell you that this is not a multisession disc. An image has been copied to the disk. The resulting disc was a boot disk because the image contained a boot disk."

Because you both asked me to verify my BIOS settings I’ll do it again. But this time I’ll do it with a copy of the file with the BIOS settings I attached to the post I made in this thread on Mon 08 Mar 2010, 19:35 in my hand. If I find the slightest difference with it I’ll let you know.

Jyore said:

Quote:

I'm assuming you never got a chance to try the "puppy pfix=ram" boot command

He’s right.

If I didn’t misunderstand him, he thinks that my original Kernel Panic problem was due to a corrupt puppy save file.
I really don’t know what puppy save file is, so I’ll do my homework studying about them.

Jyore:
Thank you for clarifying noryb’s question Nº3.
I only have one computer that works, and it’s the one who won’t boot Puppy, and I’m currently using it with XP to write this post. As far as I can recall, my BIOS screen doesn’t work with F8, it has six tabs (Main, Advanced, Security, Power, Boot and Exit) and you navigate them using the right & left arrow from the keyboard and there’s nothing in the screen that’s labelled boot medium. If it plesases you, you can take a look at the BIOS’ file attached to the post I made in this thread on Mon 08 Mar 2010, 19:35 and perhaps you will find its equivalent. I suppose it’s Boot/Boot Device Priority, but I'm not sure.

Shep said:

Quote:

Have you got any other bootable CD or DVD (Puppy or Ubuntu) that you can try, just to prove (to us) that it will boot from a bootable DVD when one is present?

The answer is no. And (answering jyore) I neither have a bootable USB drive.

Regarding jyore’s

Quote:

“Additionally, have you or can you try a fresh DVD (with a DVD type that you have verified works with your DVD player...test with a CD or movie or something)...?”

I’m not sure I understand this question correctly.
So I will try to answer you in this way:
Because I wanted to be sure my problem was not a faulty drive matter, about a month ago I replaced the DVD drive I had been using when the problem arose with a new Samsung OEM DVD drive. Its features are described by Nero’s Info Tool in the way you can see in the attachment. Because it’s new I suppose it can correctly do everything that’s described there. I have used it without problems with the same music, photographs and data CD/DVDs that were compatible with Windows and with my former drive. The only problem that I have noticed with it arises when I try to boot with my only Puppy Live CD that works on a friend’s notebook.

Thanking you for your time and attention.
Best regards

Samsung OEM DVD drive.GIF

Description

Filesize

33.83 KB

Viewed

1057 Time(s)

_________________Posting from a P4 3Ghz_ASUS P5G41T-M LX3_2G RAM_DVD Write desktop with no internal HDD
Saving my stuff on small flash sticks and in external USB HDD

Is there anything worth keeping in your puppy file on the hard drive? I ask because, as soon as the problem is finally solved (say, about Xmas 2012 at this rate ) the first thing I'll suggest is that (if there is nothing of great value) you delete it and burn a DVD with a newer version of puppy and start afresh.
So if there is nothing you want to keep that you've ever created or downloaded in puppy, you could use windoze to find the file on the hard drive where puppy stuff is saved. (It's loosely known as the puppy save file, but goes under various names according to the puppy). The one common feature is that it will have the second part of its name .2fs
Don't delete it right now, just determine where it is, its name and size.

I don’t recall having ever created or downloaded something important or that is worth keeping in my hard drive while I was using Puppy from RAM (Live DVD).

As soon as I recovered from my laughing fit I used windoze’s search tool to search my hard disk (all files [including hidden files] and folders [including system and hidden folders]) for files with .2fs or *.2fs in its name but no results were found.

Is it possible that in the confusion that arose after I clicked the wrong link on December 2009 (see http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51906) some code in the firmware and/or in the software of my computer got corrupted and that’s what’s keeping me from using my live CD and/or computer as before?

Best regards

PS (Dec 1 2010 22:14 UTC-4): The red fonts were left only for words I added on this edition.
PS (Dec 1 2010 22:48 UTC-4): Trying to make the last paragraph clearer.Last edited by Antipodal on Wed 01 Dec 2010, 22:48; edited 4 times in total

After noryb009’s last post neither.3fsnor.3fs files were found in the hard disk.

noryb009 wrote:

If you have never booted into Puppy Linux, you will not have a .2fs file.

If I'm wrong please correct me but I think it's impossible to use Puppy Linux without booting it.
And as I said in my first and second posts to this thread, I have used Puppy Linux in this computer, hundreds or thousands of times from March to December 2009 without problems.
Regards

The puppy save file would be named something like pupsave-412.2fs or at least something.2fs and it's unlikely that you don't have one. To have used puppy many times, yet still not have a personal save file, you would have had to set up keyboard, video resolution, time zone, etc., every time you used the live CD.

While cleaning out unwanted puppy files, I suggest you look for any files on your hard drive ending in .sfs and delete it/them. They shouldn't be the problem, but once they are eliminated we can be sure they aren't meddling where they are not wanted.

Next, let's start afresh at this point: have the DVD in the drive when you switch on, and as soon as you see the first puppy screen where it says you have 10 seconds to press <F2> ... then

press <F2> and at the prompt type in puppy pfix=ram and hit enter and tell us what happens after that. No need to copy it word for word, we know only too well the various permutations that can result, we just need to know which one you experience.

Also, I don't think you answered when I asked is there any reason why you can't use windows to download a current version of puppy and burn it to a DVD?

Antipodal
Joined: 26 Mar 2009Posts: 222Location: The other side of the world

Posted: Tue 30 Nov 2010, 17:01 Post subject:
Answering Shep's last postSubject description: Answering two of the three subjects. The last subject shall be answered in my next post

Dear Sir:
Thank you for your time and for your comments.
I have found three main subjects in your last post.

Regarding the first subject I must say that following your request I’ve searched for .sfs files in my hard disk and found that the only file with that ending is PUP_412.SFS
That doesn’t seem strange to me because I’m sure that from the first to the last time I used Puppy, every time I was done with it, I clicked on the following path:
Menu-->Shut Down-->Power off-computer
And when the Puppy screen with the following message appeared

Quote:

You have booted off a live-CD or DVD, and you can now save your personal settings and files to a USB Flash drive, Zip drive, floppy disk, or any hard drive partition (including NTFS). The session will be saved as a single file, named pup_save.2fs, which has an ext2 filesystem inside it.

However, if you have burnt the CD/DVD as multisession (not closed), then sessions can be saved as additional tracks to the CD/DVD -- each saved session will appear on the CD/DVD as a directory with all the saved files in it, not as a single file. THIS IS STILL EXPERIMENTAL

Select <SAVE TO FILE> (just press ENTER key) to choose a partition to save the session as file pup_save.2fs...
Select <SAVE TO CD (TAB then ENTER) to save session to CD/DVD (multisession) (Experimental)...
Select <DO NOT SAVE> to shutdown without saving session...

I’m almost sure I always chose the <DO NOT SAVE> option because I feared mixing things of two different OS.
On the other hand, I’m almost sure that each time I shifted from XP to Puppy I had to choose the mouse I would use, I’m absolutely sure I had to choose the keyboard layout, between Xorg and Xvesa, and the video mode. I’m also absolutely sure that each time I shifted from XP to Puppy I had to use the Internet Connection Wizard until a sign that said

Quote:

NETWORK CONFIGURATION OF eth0 SUCCESSFUL!
The configuration was not saved for next boot.
If there are no more interfaces to setup and configure, just click done to get out

appeared, and that when this happened I always clicked on Done

Regarding the second subject, I apologize for not knowing how to emphasize enough something that I have explained in previous posts (Sun 07 Mar 2010 17:08 and Thu 25 Nov 2010 14:07):
Since the first days of February 2010, with the DVD in the drive, when I switch on the computer, the Puppy screen doesn't appear.
Instead of that, one of these two things occur:
a) The system boots smoothly into XP
b) The system starts booting into XP but suddenly shuts down

Please, excuse me for insisting, but the screen that should say

Quote:

Puppy Linux 4.1.2

Just wait 5 seconds for normal startup!
Or if you need particular boot options, type puppy then a space, then each boot option. Some boot options:

Also, I don't think you answered when I asked is there any reason why you can't use windows to download a current version of puppy and burn it to a DVD?

In the first place I want to thank you for this question.
You made a good point.
Though you and others have made questions that are quite close to this one, none of them were put forward in these terms.
I once more apologize , but because the answer is rather complex and I must now meet some postponed obligations I will answer it in my next post.

Best regards.

Edition(4-12-2010):I corrected where it said 2009. It now says 2010Last edited by Antipodal on Sat 04 Dec 2010, 16:24; edited 1 time in total

I'd like to take a step back just to verify and lay everything back out on the table for us all to see, because at this point there has been many ideas, that have been tried for a very long time, and things are getting repeated and misunderstood. The OP seems to be getting a little frustrated, which is understandable at this point (please correct if any of this is wrong):

====CURRENTLY====
1) It never boots to Puppy AT ALL
2) The OP can not remember EVER giving the <Save File> option on shutdown
3) The OP could not find a .2fs or .3fs file, but did find an .sfs file
4) The OP has not tried a bootable USB drive or a fresh DVD burn
5) The OP has confirmed the new hardware works in Windows
================

Ok, so now that that is done. Let me see what I can think up

For (1), I still believe this is some problem with the drive reading the Puppy disk, or at least that it is a bootable device. As I said before, if it is booting from the DVD, you will not see the Windows screen, the DVD drive's light will be on/flash, and the disk will continue to spin until everything has been loaded into RAM

For (2), This could be the root cause of the original issue. Suppose the last time you maybe did click the save file and it saved to a partition. When Puppy loaded the next time, the drives or partitions were not set up the same (maybe a USB stick or some other media device was removed or in a different place) and it could not find the sfs file. Puppy then would go into Kernel Panic with failure to switch root error...

For (3), Perhaps the sfs file was saved as sfs instead of 2fs or 3fs?

For (4), Is there a specific reason preventing you from trying a new DVD or a USB? At this point, it seems like a good sanity check to say the least.

Posted: Tue 30 Nov 2010, 23:51 Post subject:
Re: Answering Shep's last postSubject description: Answering two of the three subjects. The last subject shall be answered in my next post

Antipodal wrote:

I’ve searched for .sfs files in my hard disk and found that the only file with that ending is PUP_412.SFS

Use windows to delete it. It is serving no purpose. It could be the problem, and in any case, will be automatically recreated when needed.

Quote:

each time I shifted from XP to Puppy I had to choose the mouse I would use, I’m absolutely sure I had to choose the keyboard layout, between Xorg and Xvesa, and the video mode. I’m also absolutely sure that each time I shifted from XP to Puppy I had to use the Internet Connection Wizard until

I reckon you deserve some sort of award! Something like the PATIENT PUPPY Award for PERSISTENCE!

Antipodal
Joined: 26 Mar 2009Posts: 222Location: The other side of the world

Posted: Fri 03 Dec 2010, 15:35 Post subject:
Trying to keep my wordSubject description: Disclosing some of the reasons that have prevented me from burning another ISO to a CD.

Though I would like to, I'm not sure I will be able to download correctly a version of puppy and burn it to a DVD using XP.

Remember that the Live DVD that I was using until the problem emerged, had a version of Puppy that had been selected and downloaded by a computer literate person with whom I have lost contact
At that time I was told I had to check the download integrity before burning which I never did because I didn't know what would happen if I downloaded md5sum.exe
So I burned the ISO file to the DVD without checking it and I took some days browsing the Internet and trying to find out what a Puppy Live DVD was and what could happen if I used it.
I finally decided to use it without checking it and fortunately it worked without problems from March to December 2009.
Now, that I haven't the assistance of that computer literate person, I don't know which is the best version for me to choose.
I've seen that in some places that sponsor Linux, there are tests to help those who are interested in choosing which version of Linux best fits their characteristics, but I have not found something similar for the Puppy versions in the Puppy sites. By the way, somebody should pick up this idea and post it in http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=32924.

Just to practice, while I'm writing this I'm downloading to a folder I have created on XP's desk, the Download Version 5.1.1. from ibiblio.org (130 MB) but I can't find a good guide about how to use md5sum.exe with it.
These are the moments when I think there should be a website whose goal were to teach people to use Mi____ft's tools to break free from Mi____ft
I've searched for such a place but I'm not sure if I’ve found it.
Is there any reader who can help with these things?

The download of lupu-511.iso file has ended.

Following Shep’s advice I have deleted PUP_412.SFS together with BOOT.CAT, BOOT.MSG, INITRD.GZ, ISOLINUX.BIN, ISOLINUX.CFG and VMLINUZ from XP’s "Puppy Installation CD files" folder.

What do you think my next move should be ?

Best regards

Postscript for jyore: I have never used a USB device as a booting resource.

Posted: Fri 03 Dec 2010, 19:37 Post subject:
Re: Trying to keep my wordSubject description: Disclosing some of the reasons that have prevented me from burning another ISO to a CD.

Antipodal wrote:

Now, that I haven't the assistance of that computer literate person, I don't know which is the best version for me to choose.

Generally, there isn't a best version for you, or for anyone. There isn't one best version. There are so many different puppies that most people's need can be met by any of a handful of puppies or versions of puppy. Even if there were right now a version that was best for your needs, the situation may change next week. Basically, any version that meets your current needs is the best for you currently. (It could be that in a few weeks you may discover a bug or limitation which really annoys you, in which case, it may be time to go for something different/better, or time to install an update of specific software.)

That said, I think you should just pick any popular puppy which has the browser that you like, and if it works on your PC settle for that Puppy for the time being. When you use it as a LIVE DVD it doesn't leave any files on your HDD unless you give it permission to, so if downloads are not costly for you, you can burn new versions of puppy and trial them to your hearts content. I have the feeling that your needs are not particularly demanding, given that you were content with the one version of puppy for a whole year. Though one crucial consideration--how do you access the internet? Some won't do dial-up, some won't do all wireless, etc.

So now you have 2 puppies, each as a live DVD. *** Let's assume for the time being that there are no errors, either in the downloading or in the burning. (We can verify this later.)

I believe we are still waiting to hear that you have verified the boot sequence is set to first try the optical drive: DVD ... HDD, etc.

Either check that, or insert your new Lupu DVD into the drive, reboot, and see what happens. You can go the same route as you did each time for your earlier Puppy whereby you hit <F2> and type: puppy pfix=ram so that it knows to run entirely from the DVD. But you will be on familiar ground.

***EDIT Oops, I think I overlooked a small step here. You possibly don't know how to burn an iso file to a DVD to create a bootable disk? Using XP nobody knows how, as I think XP lacks the software. Someone else might jump in here and point to a thread (one of dozens, I'm sure) where this is discussed in this forum, but you'll need to download a small program to allow XP to do this. Maybe you already have something installed from when you burnt your first Puppy DVD? I believe I used nero on XP to burn my first Puppy, but any software that will burn an iso file should do the job. A search on google ("burn iso in XP") turns up lots, here's one at random: http://www.techhead.co.uk/how-to-burn-dvd-isos-directly-in-windows-xp-and-vista-for-free

Also, to use md5sum I just go to the commandline and type: md5sum file.iso and it comes up with a number. If that number checks with the one on the site from where you downloaded the file, then its integrity is okay. In linux, to check the DVD, I type: md5sum /dev/dvd

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